Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Room
The man with the cane beheld her with a weary gaze. She sensed no animosity from him when animosity was all that she thought she deserved.
"Good morning."
Carmen furrowed her brows. "Who…"
"I'm Dr. Loomis."
"Where am I?" she asked him, yet she couldn't have sounded more uncaring for what his answer might have been.
"You're at Decatur Memorial Hospital."
"Oh. Did you…" She glanced down at her casted leg.
Dr. Loomis smiled. "No, I'm not that type of doctor."
"Then, what do you do?"
"I'm a psychiatrist."
"Oh…" Carmen said with a frown.
"How are you feeling, Carmen?"
At first, it struck her as a singularly dumb question. Wasn't the answer obvious enough? Then, Carmen realized the horrendous ordeal she'd survived, where others more unfortunate have not. Shouldn't she feel fine? Shouldn't she feel glad?
"Carmen?"
"Doctor Loomis, I…" Her fortitude dissolved. Any traces of its existence were lost to her tears. "I'm…"
The old man scuttled to her bedside, his hand over hers, cuffed to the bedrail. She looked at it hopelessly as she sobbed.
"I'm so sorry."
She'd closed her eyes, shook her head, and sputtered a pathetic laugh. "No. No. I'm overreacting. I deserve this— what am I saying?"
His watery eyes made it hard to tell if he was crying with her. "I would say, you're one of the last people to say that," Dr. Loomis said. "You've been through a great deal in the last two days."
Her chin wrinkled as she tried, once more, to suppress her cry. She succeeded and worked the muscles in her throat. To warm the words she wanted to say which might otherwise sound brittle.
"I...killed a man…"
Dr. Loomis looked at her as though that knowledge was commonplace. And it was.
When he looked down at their joined hands, she had too. And finally noticed her ink stained fingers.
"Yes," Dr. Loomis said, "Your fingerprints confirm those that were found on your father's gun."
"Does that mean…" She gulped. "...I'm going to prison?"
He pursed his lips in thought. At this angle, she could see the carving of a deep scar around the upper left portion of his face.
"It means…You'll have to make us understand what really happened. Do you know what happened, Carmen? Is last night a story you'd like to share with us?"
"Yes…" Carmen said earnestly, her heart never as eager to empty out the liquid rot that was eating it from the inside.
But, she didn't start from last night. Oh, no. She started on the day of her mother's death.